Jewniverse (online – 01/03/2016)

Five years ago, when journalist and filmmaker Angélique Kourounis began trailing Greece’s far-right Golden Dawn party, it wasn’t simply because she wanted to expose the political organization’s neo-Nazi and fascist beliefs—they do that on their own. Kourounis covered them because, for her, it was personal.

“My partner in life is a Jew,” Kourounis explains at the beginning of Golden Dawn: A Personal Affair, her new documentary. “One of my sons is gay, another is an anarchist, and I’m a left-wing feminist and daughter of immigrants.”

Though Golden Dawn publicly rejects the accusation that they are neo-Nazis and fascists their own Literature claims, “We are the faithful soldiers of the National Socialist ideal and nothing else.” Indeed, party members march down the street in all black, shouting racist slurs; they attack, and sometimes murder, immigrants and political opponents; they, like the Nazis, champion the ethnic Greek, proudly donating blood and food–but only if the recipients are assured to be Greek citizens.

Golden Dawn’s popularity has risen in recent years, gaining them seats in the Greek parliament, and making a film like Kourounis’ feel very vital. “If Golden Dawn comes to power,” Kourounis says, “our only problem will be which wagon they put us on.”